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Kickstart My Art | Halloween Eve by Amy Reeder and Brandon Montclare

If you’ve been wondering what Amy Reeder would be doing after her departure from Batwoman, here’s a treat, not a trick–she and writer Brandon Montclare (Fearsome Four) have teamed up for a creator-owned comic called Halloween Eve. The duo is currently raising money on Kickstarter to shoulder the cost of making it.

“It has been so rewarding to work on this,” Reeder said on her blog. “If I could give one person the biggest responsibility for my career at this point, it would be Brandon…he basically discovered me and helped me get work both when he was at Tokyopop and then Vertigo. And, he’s my best friend. So it’s nice that we have a great working relationship and to know that I’m not alone as I venture out into the creator-owned world. He really knows his stuff.”

Here’s a description of the comic, from Kickstarter:

Eve has an imagination that’s more than active—it can be downright dangerous! Working late at the costume super-store Halloween Land, she gets lost in her own thoughts until something goes bump in the night… The rubber masks and plastic novelties are coming to life, and Eve must face ghosts, goblins, and gorilla suits made real!

HALLOWEEN EVE is a 40-page (32 story pages plus other content) full-color comic, due out in October 2012 to celebrate Halloween. It’s a stand-alone, self-contained tale of magic and adventure. It’s geared toward teen and adult audiences.

Reeder said they have a publisher for it, but “they aren’t a publisher who regularly pays upfront, so we are shouldering the costs.” A $10 donation gets you a signed copy of the book, along with a Halloween Eve greeting card. Other rewards include sketches and even a portfolio or script review by Montclare, a former editor. Check out some of the artwork for the book below.

Odds are the publisher is Image, who pays upfront costs (printing, the Previews listing, etc.) but doesn’t pay a page rate during the creation of the book. As to why you would go that route, it’d be to get the exposure to retailers by being in the front of Previews, and the name cache of being another great creator-owned book alongside The Walking Dead, Chew, Saga, Fatale, and all the other big Image books is churning out these days.

Obviously Amy & I are really happy with all the support so far. This is going to sound very cliche: Halloween Eve is about making a great book, not about making money. But that being said: making a great book is the first and most important part of making money; being a “professional” is being able to produce comics that support themselves and the creators who make them. And of course, none of that is easy.

We’ll be announcing the publisher by the end of this month. Amy and I are big believers in the benefits of direct market comics retailers, and have had most of our successes with a readership that goes to the LCS every Wednesday. But aside from distribution, there’s also production. We had a very small window to get this book out before Halloween–so definitely needed to go with an experienced publisher. And there’s a lot of other benefits, as well. Another cliche: you want to work with a publisher that brings value to the project. We definitely think we’ve done that!